We’re still more than a year away from the next U.S. presidential election, but the nonstop media circus that typically surrounds the race is already in full swing.

Meanwhile, the campaign for the upcoming federal elections in my homeland of Canada kicked off last month, quietly and without much fanfare.

Canadian politics are just plain boring. While American politics provide us with a seemingly endless stream of entertainment and media content, Canadian politics rarely pique the interest of anyone outside of Canada, or even in Canada for that matter.

The Canadian political campaign will last just eleven weeks – the longest in modern Canadian history – with voters heading to the polls on Oct. 19, less than two months from now.

Yet, when I browse through my Facebook news feed, my old Canadian friends seem much more interested in discussing Donald Trump’s latest ridiculous quote or Hillary Clinton’s email scandal than Stephen Harper’s education policies – Harper is the current prime minister, for the 99 percent of you who probably didn’t know.

As far as I’ve seen, only one story from the Canadian election cycle has gotten any significant media coverage outside of Canada: a parliamentary candidate and former owner of an appliance repair business was forced to withdraw from the upcoming election after footage surfaced of him urinating into a homeowner’s coffee mug while on a service call in 2012.

These kinds of stories are relatively rare in Canada, unlike in the U.S., where the media is constantly on the prowl for political faux-pas.

“Our campaigns are such a spectacle here. The news media has a tendency to focus on when a candidate says something stupid or makes a gaffe, and then that leads news coverage as opposed to coverage of their substantive policies,” said Dr. Travis N. Ridout, Thomas S. Foley professor of government and public policy and director of graduate studies in the WSU School of Politics, Philosophy and Public Affairs.

While it may be true that the media circus cheapens the substance of political discourse in America, it does serve one beneficial purpose: getting people interested and engaged in the political process.

When Donald Trump took the stage with nine other presidential hopefuls at the first Republican debate in early August, 24 million people tuned in, making the event by far the most-watched debate in American history. Hashtags like #trump, #GOPDebate and #megynkellydebatequestions quickly became trending topics on Twitter.

Barack Obama was similarly able to capitalize on the media climate and social media in particular during his 2008 presidential campaign, bringing in record numbers of young voters and fostering the highest voter turnout in a U.S. presidential election since 1968.

Canadian politics urgently need that hype and excitement; Canada’s last five federal elections generated five of the lowest voter turnouts in Canadian history.

While the relationship between media and politics in the U.S. is clearly dysfunctional, it certainly isn’t boring. If media sensationalism helps engage people in the political process, I’m all for it.